ALLIES BY DEFAULT you're more useful alive
by independant-and-complicated
Summary: Buffy is in Europe trying to find & train Slayers, get a tan and European labels. Selene and Michael are trying to make a truce between two races that hate each other more than they hate them. Both need allies quite badly... has been re-edited.
1. Meeting

**Meeting… Awkwardly**

**Setting:** Three years after Selene and Michael headed purposefully off into the sunset, Selene newly made into a new breed of vampire (half vampire, half pure immortal), and a year after Buffy saved the world from the Big One in Sunnydale.

Selene sat in a booth in a building full of jiggling, dribbling humans and sipped a little heavier from her whiskey flask. She breathed in a cocktail of hormones laced with smoke from people's breath and was content to ignore everything since there was nothing going on.

She watched a girl throw up into a corner of the sofas that lined the opposite wall. She ignored both the barman who was looking hopefully in her direction, and the man bear the bar with no shirt and below-the-hip trousers, giving her 'come hither' signals. Michael was playing pool in the next room, if she couldn't see, then she could smell him and hear what was happening. It seemed he was going to win again. He still had an attachment to money, even if he had the evolutional edge on every game.

And they were late. She hated it when people were late.

Another twenty minutes ticked by before they arrived. She didn't even twitch, but Michael, who was by the door, seemed to see how her attention had been directed at something and immediately won his game to join her. Well, not to join her, but to stay in the same room.

The lycans had agreed to meet here. This was their turf and they swaggered like they were bestowing everyone with a great honour, especially when they saw Selene.

The one who called himself 'Razor' rolled over and leaned on the sticky table.

"Sorry we're late"

Selene couldn't avoid the smell of blood on his breath. It explained his 'addict on a high' look.

'Is there somewhere quieter we could go?' she asked in a murmur. Razor held eye contact for a moment and hefted himself off the table, Selene noted his jacket had stuck briefly to the ancient alcohol stains and felt a stir of amusement. He called this his territory, like there should be bouncers at the doors and people with lists. She got up and discreetly signalled Michael.

"And the others?" she asked, halfway to the door, noting them sitting

"They're here to have a little fun, a bit of action and maybe something sweet; I came for business"

Selene felt inwardly appalled. This was awful; no wonder the mortality rate was so high, it was a miracle of human ignorance they weren't revealed. They barely kept themselves from being discovered, as it was, the city police were keen to get this crew behind bars. There were deaths in this area, all explained by things like bar fighting, drug addicts trying something, that kind of thing, but no one caught them. Selene was grateful, if so strong a word applied, so few had been turned.

Outside, Selene hoped Michael would stay in the club and keep an eye on things. A new gaggle of girls had just walked in, the kind of girls hunting animals liked to go for. They all gave them an odd look, which Selene ignored. She didn't care about their opinions of leather and Spandex.

"Was willst du?" asked Razor, what do you want?

"Truce" said Selene, wondering if news had reached his little hole yet

"I heard about it," said Razor, his eyes unfriendly, "and so you think because you killed the Corvinus brothers and that bastard you called your master, we'll forget the centuries of vampires hunting our kind for being nothing but what we are and daring to be free? You thought we'd hold hands and be Children of the World?"

He didn't know that Selene was now a full-blooded immortal. Very few did. She felt oddly responsible for the whole vampire history, she suspected it was a connecting theme from Corvinus' memories, now part of her subconscious.

She briefly wondered if he knew that Michael was here, or if Razor knew about him, and if that would make a difference.

There was a scream. Selene looked quizzically at the nightclub and looked back at Razor to see him calm and grinning.

"The party's getting warmed up" said Razor, but then behind the club, where the scream had come from now exploded with crashing bins, more screams and shouts of fighting. A terrified girl with dark hair ran out, tottering on her high heels.

They both ran to the alley behind the club, and halted as soon as they turned the corner.

There were four girls batting these fully matured Lycans as if their positions had switched. The blonde one in the middle, despite doing an equal amount of fighting, was the leader. Selene knew the disciplined, controlled expression. Razor was stepping uncertainly forward, unsure if he actually wanted to attack.

Michael had appeared behind her, and as if by accident touched her hand. Selene ignored this and strode into the bleeding mess of dead Lycans, until level with Razor. The blonde girl, eyes fierce as she recognised a new threat, immediately started forward.

Selene took out her gun (which had a silencer on these days), and casually shot Razor in the head. The shot made all four girls stop dead, including the leader girl, who watched the man fall to the floor, and Selene put her gun back in its loop. She then realised to human eyes, she was standing in shadow.

"How do you know what they are?" she demanded, stepping out into the light that came from the emergency exit, which the translator of the girls appeared to be leaning lightly against, but by the shouting and rattling was holding back at least three men. She heard a familiar rumble as Michael growled at the girls. He sensed it too; something strange.

All four girls, two brunettes, two blondes, had an aura in them. The leader, holding a silver, moulded stake, had stopped at the question and the girls immediately got in a kind of formation behind her, the girl at the door casually broke off the door handle before joining.

"She asked how we knew what they were" said a German-accented girl in English to the leader. The girl kept her eyes on the two newcomers and shifted her weight

"Tell her…" she began, in an American accent

"I speak English"

"It's my job to know what you are when I see you" she snapped

"You're human" said Michael, puzzled, coming forward

"Yeah, but somehow I don't make a good meal" said the girl lightly

Selene narrowed her eyes. She then took a step forward, noting how this made all the girls tense underneath their stance.

"Why do you hunt Lycans?" she asked, but the blonde cocked her head

"We hunt what-now?"

"Lycans" repeated Selene

"Werewolves" said Michael, taking a looser stance beside Selene. Selene wasn't sure what was happening here but one day she'd have to teach him about not letting his guard down so quickly. She was fairly certain it was because all four girls were pretty.

The two other girls had taken flanking positions just behind the leader, who was weighing Selene and Michael up.

"Ever heard of a Slayer?" she asked, half-threateningly

"No" answered Selene, she hated American posturing in their casual speech patterns

"It's our job to slice and dice the creature-features in town, which lands you in a bad place to be right now" said the blonde, her tone light, almost joking.

Selene pulled her gun from her holster before she had finished the sentence, at least bullets of any kind worked on humans, even if they were silver.

"What, you'll shoot all of us at once? You'll only have the time for one and we don't die easily" the blonde sneered, but the other girls appeared less certain. They seemed much more surprised by the gun than anything else.

Michael, whose eyes had gone dark and his hands had turned into claws, growled

The awkward pause, which had started the moment they noticed Selene, continued, but everyone had simply stopped talking.

"We're at least doing the same work" said Selene, taking the magazine out to show the bullets

"What, you kill these guys too?" asked the blonde, frowning

"We try to make truces first" said Michael, getting impatient and annoyed

"And that's why you ran in with him?" asked one of the brunettes, nodding at Razor

"It wasn't going to work out anyway" said Selene, allowing a trace of humour to creep in

The leader, still frowning, seemed to make a decision

'So who are you?' she asked, Selene felt like she was going to regret this.

"I'm Selene, this is Michael"

"Vampires icing other demons? What's the gig?" stated the blonde

"We kill Lycans who still think we're at war" snapped Selene impatiently, who privately hated words like 'gig' and 'icing'

The girl nodded and then waved a hand slightly, and the girls started going around with some bottled and matches.

"I can get that" said Selene, and walked past them with a small vial of fluid she had raided from Alexander Corvinus' and Tanis' collection of weapons. She and Michael tossed the corpses together and each smashed a vial on top, and watched as, within a few minutes, the Lycans dissolved and evaporated. All that was left was the battered, torn and somewhat singed contents of a second-hand Goth shop.

"Handy" said the blonde, who seemed to really accept Selene was at least a Lycan hunter.

"We get around" said Michael, grinning, the girl smiled back. Michael intrigued her, Selene could see it. She then decided she could at least assess the situation.

"How about we truce for now and explain? We have a flat near"

The blonde nodded and they walked back to a small flat, three rooms and a bathroom, four streets from the club. It was just far away enough so Selene didn't have to smell it.

They sat, slightly crowded, in the small kitchen-lounge. Selene heard the familiar sounds of silver weapons tinkling against things as they sat and smiled inwardly. She did miss a team sometimes.

"We just came from Russia," she began, leaning against the wall facing into the room where all the slayers had taken the sofas and the one chair. The leader had taken the chair, "nearly four years ago I was in a large coven, as a Death-dealer, our job was to hunt down the remaining lycans and end the war"

"What war?" asked the blonde

'It's a long story, but it ended because the Lycan-clan leader found the last descendant of our species common ancestor," she nodded to Michael, "Michael was the only one with the ability to become a hybrid of both, creating something stronger than all of us. To cut it short, revealing him made all the lies that were told were uncovered, and the twins sons of our ancestor, the first vampire and the first Lycan, were killed, and now the vampires and lycans are somewhere between choosing a truce or battling it out once and for good'

The blonde simply stared, looking both bored and incredulous

"You called yourself Death-dealers?" she asked

"I didn't choose the name" replied Selene in tones that could have frozen steel

"And is that your uniform?" she demanded

Selene had recently taken to dark trousers and t-shirts, and a smaller black jacket, but the belt had stayed and the jacket had pockets for useful things like bullet clips, her flask and so on.

"And you are?" she asked coldly

"Buffy" said the girl, and pointed at the other girls, "Jean, Anna and Sydney. We're slayers, just came from an Apocalypse in America, we're looking the next Hell mouth in Europe"

In fairness, the ridiculousness of the story on both sides balanced out. Humans that had demonic powers to kill demons of any shape and size you can imagine, and a couple of vampire hybrids that had functional souls and a mission of roughly the same magnitude.

"So… you're a hybrid?" asked Buffy to Michael, who had stayed in the doorway behind them

"Yeah, but I'm both Lycan and vampire, Selene is vampire and true immortal"

'You're…?' asked Buffy, frowning back at Selene

'I was a vampire for six centuries before accepting Alexander Corvinus' blood to kill his twin sons – Alexander was a true immortal, the ancestor of both our races'

"…Right" said Buffy

"So you came to kill the lycans?" asked Michael

'We came to see what we could find' said Buffy, though not as tersely as she spoke to Selene. Selene recognised in her expression that Michael was better in her eyes because he was American, tall and attractive.

Selene couldn't help rolling her eyes. She strode to the fridge and pulled out a strange metal tube which connected to a blood capsule using a thin drip-tube. She pressed the mechanised nozzle down into her flask, which looked like a standard steel whiskey flask, and waited for it to fill. Michael took his out of his pocket as Selene put hers down, she didn't even look to catch his which had been tossed across the room. The slayers couldn't help being a little impressed.

Buffy, on the other hand, was confused. It wasn't hard to see these… whatever they were, were nothing like what she had encountered before. She had seen Michael's eyes go black and Selene's go pale, almost white-blue. Her fangs were smaller than the vampires at home, her brow stayed the same, and they were definitely in possession of a soul. And the thing they were doing with the blood – she could see more blood capsules sitting on the shelf below, and the metal bottle-shaped thing appeared to make it more convenient to fill up containers. This was sophisticated. What happened to good old bust-'em-dust-'em? Selene had guns, for Pete's sake, she saw in the other room there were a small stack of bullet clips, more varying weapons, and even spare bullets sitting in a machine that looked like it might fill them with silver.

"So vampires are different where you come from?" asked Selene, still looking intently at Michael's miniature hip-flask that looked like it was designed for coffee on the go.

"Less about guns, more about bumpy faces and teeth"

Selene nodded

"We heard of them, we thought they were some kind of lesser strain of the Corvinus Curse"

Buffy was about to shoot back a scathing retort when Michael cut in

"So what's this about demons? There's more?"

Buffy gave her humourless smile at him, feeling, as ever, like she was a lead act in an endless freak-show.

"You can't imagine" she said

Selene turned round, and tossed Michael back his flask while keeping her eyes fixed on Buffy's. She regarded her thoughtfully.

"You said an apocalypse?"

'Well, one of, but yeah' she answered. Selene's eyes narrowed. Buffy realised whatever Selene was, she hadn't heard of the rest of the demon world.

"And you," said Selene, scanning her eyes over the other slayers, "averted it?"

"There's more of us" said Buffy, hinting. She noted Selene had a mug which she was sipping from, and Michael was crossing to get the other on the work-surface. She had to admit, it was less creepy than watching it being tapped from the source.

"Good to know" Selene answered, and exchanged a glance with Michael.

Buffy hadn't had a boyfriend in forever, and it prickled her that this one was with this brooding, English semi-goth vampire-thing woman. It hadn't helped Selene's equipment was flashier than hers – she had been really proud of her new silver stake which Giles had sent her for Christmas from England, he'd even taken impressions off old wooden stakes she had gripped too tightly so it would mould into her hand, using plated cast-iron. Anna looked subtly looked at her watch. Buffy looked at her own and realised the other slayers would be wondering where they were.

"Hey, we have to go" she said, and the slayers rose

"I had something to ask you" said Selene, who seemed, in the last second, to have decided something with Michael, as they had given each other a look that lasted a couple of seconds

"Which is?" asked Buffy, thinking to herself that the answer was no

"You're protecting the public, I'm trying to make a truce, and as soon as Razor's death is known to the lycans here, which is soon, the public won't be safe and it would jeopardise the entire mission"

Buffy hesitated. She wanted to go home and move everyone on to the next city and decide what to do about vampire-hybrids after she had called Giles, but she knew this wasn't going to happen. She needed to call Giles.

"Hotel near the fountain, in an hour" she said, and strode out followed by the slayers. It was weird not thinking of them as the 'potentials' anymore. It was nice not to have to do everything on her own, even if it was still saving the damn world.

The girls were buzzing as soon as they hit the street, discussing the idea of hybrids, Michael, souls and, to Buffy's disgust, the cool equipment.

Only Buffy saw Selene and Michael practically fly out of the window and take off over the rooftops back towards the club. Well, at least the jacket hadn't been bad

"So 1990s" she muttered

"… but it doesn't have to be magic, what if a virus can make you invincible?" argued Jean

Something else to ask Giles

"Well there have been stories,' said Giles, 'of vampires who weren't made by, erm… the way we're more familiar with, but as far as I know… it's said to be extremely unpleasant, literally rewriting the human DNA, very few survive the transformation"

"And that's the same with the Dycans?" asked Buffy, who was staring at a strange soup the other slayers had got from a local take-out restaurant. It looked like sausage was floating in it.

"Erm, Lycans,' corrected Giles absently, and she heard the thump of books with ancient bindings, "ah yes, we've only got vague references, this mentions a vampire Lord, one of three, who ruled a coven for a hundred years before going to sleep while one the other two takes a turn, surprisingly civilised of them… it does mention their ancestor, someone called Corvinus, but nothing about his sons… and despite having immortality and a thirst for blood, they have no demonic powers and appear to be much like you or I"

"Except for the blood part, did I mention the blood part?" Interrupted Buffy, "They had a fridge, and those blood packs you get in hospitals and they had a machine to fill coffee flasks with it!"

"Sounds very convenient, actually, quite a good way of going about it" said Giles, murmuring to himself

'Giles, it's gross!' she reminded

Jean came with a tub of ice-cream which Buffy gladly tucked into with her soup spoon and much enthusiasm, making a casual effort to push away the soup with her elbow.

"Buffy, you have accepted vampires with souls as allies before" said Giles with mild reprove

"Only when they…" began Buffy but Giles interrupted with an "Ah!"

"You know I could have heard that across the room" said Buffy reproachfully

"Diary from a watcher of the time of Corvinus, he says '_the slayer encountered vampires harder to kill than most of their kind, and did not display the usual behaviour, feeding on animals rather than on humans, claiming it was their laws to keep a discreet profile…_' and it appears they weren't keen on conversation either"

"So they're not evil?" asked Buffy glumly

"No, sorry to tell you, they're not,I know how much you love to kill things, but perhaps if this Selene and Michael are more powerful still, they'd be useful if more Lycans are on the way"

"So I have to fight with them?" asked Buffy, pouting

"Yes, I'm afraid it looks like they'd be useful, especially since you started it"

Michael couldn't help studying Selene out of the corner of his eye. It was a regular habit of his to simply watch the way she moved or the way she sat still, like now. They were crouched on top of two roof-windows which stuck out of the main roof close together and swathed them both in shadow.

Michael was feeling in an odd position of knowing what Selene was capable of better than she did (although she did have a very good, more in-depth knowledge of the basic than he did) but still felt like a junior in the mission setting. He had a lot of patience with it, as, one, it was just a bit cool, he was still very young after all and clung to human ideas and values, and two, Selene had been a soldier from the day she was bitten up to now, she wasn't really a habit-losing sort of person.

He was lucky, he thought, to see things change for her as it had changed for him, they were adjusting to themselves being new creatures and somehow the extra space they'd allowed for themselves had allowed better room for each other. Selene had been much more open with him recently.

"I can sense their unease" she said

"You couldn't do that before?" he asked, who had thought this was normal

"No, you just knew it was there, like humans; you saw it rather than felt it"

That was a classic example; it didn't take a genius to guess Selene would never have spoken of it to anyone else.

"You're not happy about the slayer" he muttered, who knew enough by now not to use her name

"She's a human, and she knows about us, she can kill Lycans; as a Death dealer I would have got every soldier I could find and slaughtered all of them"

Michael pondered on that for a while

'You guys didn't make many allies?'

Selene smiled slightly

"Viktor wasn't keen on speaking to anyone we hadn't bitten first, Markus only thought about food and having as little to do with us as he could, and Amelia didn't think humans were stable enough to make good allies, so we weren't the making friends type"

"You never worked with any humans on missions?" he asked, a little incredulous

Selene's smile twitched very slightly wider and she looked at him

"Only one"

Michael leaned over using his enhanced balance, and kissed her, somehow sure that for the moment he could override the 'on the mission' atmosphere. He felt her hand grip lightly on his shoulder, and felt a little thrill as she accepted the break in the rules with returned warmth. Just then Michael's watch beeped, surprising them both, making Selene grab his watch and press the button faster than he could get to it, his hand having been on Selene's face.

They were off the roof so fast and heading towards the slayers' hotel that by the time anyone could have got to the window they would have already been well away.

Buffy noted they had waited politely on the roof for a few minutes before getting down on the fire escape to knock on the emergency exit door.

"I think it's alarmed" she called from her sofa

"It isn't now" said Selene, sounding a bit amused by all this

Buffy nodded to Sydney who opened the door, with a cross and a stake in one hand for good measure.

"Do those things work on your vampires?" asked Selene, eyeing them as she walked in

'Yeah,' said Buffy, getting up, "what works on you…? I mean your vampires?"

"Daylight" said Selene and half-smiling tossed her a gun, "the Lycans developed UV rounds, it's handier than the UV-beacons I suppose"

"Um… thanks" said Buffy, who wasn't a gun expert and knew that the grip was the bit you held it with and the trigger you pulled to make it kill things, but she had the best aim with a crossbow or a throwing axe.

"I can teach you how to use it" offered Selene and Michael grinned to himself. Selene was trying to be nice.

"Um, thanks, I'll probably figure it out on my own" said Buffy, trying to look casual as she put it down

The other slayers had taken casual positions round the room; Selene noted they all had an easy reach to a weapon.

"We could unarm if you like" said Michael, who was hovering again

"You are weapons," said Buffy, "what with the teeth, the super-strength and the weird eyes… they're just making sure" she said, giving Sydney a look because she had edged closer to her axe, "was the axe really necessary?"

Sydney smiled and raised an eyebrow

"We've been thinking" said Michael, "you should have killed us but you didn't, you saw what we were when you walked in but we haven't noticed you trying"

Buffy nodded, "we don't really kill the ones with souls"

Selene frowned slightly at that but then said "That can put us both unconscious" nodding at the gun. She noticed Buffy only glanced at the gun but didn't register it as an important fact.

"OK I'll just get to the point," Said Buffy, "we just came from an Apocalypse, and we need allies, we lost a lot of our friends and we need more, we always need more. So far, you're the most powerful demons- I mean, I don't know!' she amended at the couple's glare, 'But you're as powerful as we are, and the fact that you don't want to kill us is really as good as, well, people like you, are… to Slayers… hell, that even gets you on our Christmas card list"

"We don't have an address" said Selene, who was smiling

"Good, 'cause we don't really do cards said Buffy, grinning back

"Was möchten Sie von uns?" asked Anna, speaking in German again, always accidentally

"We actually want the same thing," answered Selene, "allies"

"I didn't really get the whole… story" said Sydney

"We used to be at war," said Selene, "vampires and Lycans have actually never been at peace – it began with the Corvinus twins; William, the first Lycan, had an appetite for destruction. His brother Markus kept trying to stop the spread of Lycans getting too far.

'Then several centuries, and several lies, later, the war had scaled into being near uncontrollable. Now it's over, the twins are dead, the Lycan Clan leader is dead, the Vampire Elders are all dead, we only have two races that are used to killing each other and no real leaders. It's made chaos, soon it could spill out and involve more humans than it does already, then the whole world will be at war… Michael and I are the only ones powerful enough to try and make some kind of truce, hopefully some kind of new treaty, but now we're on neither side which gives us two enemies who see us as a threat… we need a little more weight to have any chance of success"

The slayers nodded automatically; there was a silence as there was time to process it all.

"So, you wanna threaten the whole Vulcan-Vampire world that Slayers will come get them if they don't behave?" asked Buffy

"Something like that," said Selene, her eyes glinting, "but Michael and I scare them enough already, we just need allies for when humans might start getting hurt"

Buffy sighed. She was out of Sunnydale, and yet again was going to be responsible for protecting the world from another kind of Apocalypse. She wished she didn't need people with Selene and Michael's skills…

"So… you really didn't know about the Hellmouth, Slayers and demons?" asked Jean, who was absently toying with her dagger, lounged with her legs on another chair at the table

"No" said Michael, who looked sideways at Selene, who motionlessly agreed she didn't either.

Buffy noticed, and was impressed. The Slayers talked to each other like that when they were fighting, it was part of what made them so undefeated.

"Wow, you guys must've really been busy" said Jean, looking at the gun

"Speaking of which, Lycans won't be far away" said Selene

"We'll patrol tonight and keep look out for anything suspicious" said Buffy

"Lycans aren't very subtle" said Michael, grinning

"Yeah, I guessed, what with the motorbikes, bad clothes and the "this won't hurt" routine" said Buffy

'We'll be around' said Selene, and gave Buffy a card with Selene's number on it. It was a properly printed business card but it only had a number on it. Buffy raised an eyebrow slightly; what was with vampires and their weird thing about being slick. The slickness was just part of what made people want to kill them.

The two immortals left via the door they came and jumped neatly onto the roof opposite the building.

"Is it just me, or what Michael hot and Selene kinda creepy?" asked Jean, who was still lounging put had put the knife down

"Yeah," said Buffy, shutting the door, "And she needs a few shopping lessons"

There was a chorus of nods.

**Note:** I might have put the setting out of sync with dates the films and the last series of Buffy were made, but ah, the joys of artistic licence.


	2. Seeing as you didn't try to kill me

The morning after an uneventful patrolling, Dawn, who had taken to travelling like a duck to flying, came in through the door, smiles dazzling and brand new shoes clicking. Buffy wrapped her in a big hug and immediately took stock; she was even taller (not including shoes) and had taken on Europe's many flavours in fashion. Berlin clearly suited her better than Madrid.

"Buffy! Oh my God, you'll never believe it," she cried excitedly, "they came on the same flight!"

"Who?" asked Buffy, and heard before she saw them. She looked speechlessly at Dawn before going to the door of the flat. Loaded with luggage was Willow and Kennedy.

Buffy had one of her moments. For the men reading, this is a time when girls let out the highest-pitch squeal they can, jump up and down, and hug, usually all at the same time but here because of the stairs it was cut into stages. It's becoming a traditional Western greeting; needless to say, the Japanese are picking up on it too.

"I can't believe it, what are you doing here?" cried Buffy, now hugging Kennedy

"It's Kennedy's twenty-first, we're going round the world" said Willow, wrapping an arm round Kennedy's waist, who was the one carrying all the luggage

"And I needed help shopping" said Dawn, appearing at the doorway

"Good job we had Slayer strength to get it all up the stairs," said Willow, as Buffy brought them inside, "I thought I would have to fly it all up, which would have been hard"

"We had to call in a huge cab to carry it all" said Dawn happily

"What, after the Slayer Spell you still have control issues?' Buffy asked Willow incredulously

"No, I just can't do corners that well" said Willow. Being on the top floor of a four-storey building did have its issues.

They ordered in pizza and chicken instead of letting Anna near the cooker. Anna wasn't bad, but she did seem to think it was part of her duty as the country's native in the group to give the girls traditional food. With more Americans in the flat it gave Buffy enough excuse to grab the phone and order before Anna could get into the kitchen.

And again, things got crowded.

The slayers who had survived the Apocalypse knew the skills of making space; sitting on each other's knees (Kennedy sat on Willow even though a seat was offered), sitting on the table, on the floor, leaning and so on. Anna and Sydney had heard the stories and saw a little of what it was like.

For the most part, Buffy had been living off the insurance of the house, the car and their possessions, adding to it with waitressing jobs and selling artefacts she found along the way to Giles' collector friends. It had turned out a small bag of what she had thought were beans were in fact extremely valuable fingertips of a very powerful kind of demon. That had helped when they were in Paris.

Buffy eventually got round to telling them about Selene and Michael (or the Creepy Couple as Sydney called them).

"Did you know? Had you ever heard about…?"

"No," said Willow, "I mean, in _Blade_ you get the "ooh!"-factor by a vampire who doesn't poof in the light, but I'd never heard of vampire-by-virus, are you sure they're even vampires?"

Buffy shrugged, 'They seemed pretty sure, I mean, they drink blood, but they have souls, and, I mean, putting Spike-and-Drusilla creepiness aside, they're really, like, really in love… you can't get that without a real soul"

Willow felt Kennedy lean back against her shoulder just marginally heavier. She loved this silent language they had that involved things like that.

"So, they're not vampires? They're… immortal things?" asked Kennedy

Buffy shrugged. The whole story had confused her and quite frankly she hadn't listened to very much of it

"They said something about war, werewolves and vampires being at war, or not anymore, needing a truce… it was all a kinda complicated, but they want us to act as an 'or else' thing, you know? They said it might work…"

"Well it sounds kinda icky with the virus part, but I guess with souls and that much strength they'd make pretty good allies, right?" asked Willow

Buffy pouted "Why do I have to make all the allies? All the slayers in the world should be enough, but Giles is like, Mega-Watcher and says we need all the back-up we need"

"Well it gets you travelling" said Dawn from the arm of Jean's chair, "which isn't such a bad thing"

'Not when you get to shop for every label on the continent' said Buffy wryly, but then a knock on the fire escape door

A slayer called Freya answered the door and allowed Selene and Michael through, for all the way they could go, which was about three feet. There was eleven slayers plus guests in the one kitchen-lounge and now they made it fifteen.

"The sun's out!" said Buffy, staring

"We explained we're not vampires" said Selene flatly, said Selene, noting the red-head and the two new brunettes, of which the younger one had dramatic reddish highlights that had been the fashion in France in the last few months. She bore a resemblance to Buffy.

"We can come back" said Michael

"Um, yeah, that would probably be a good plan," said Buffy, standing up and half-smiling, "we're a bit crowded – was there something?"

"The Lycans, they've agreed to meet tonight if yourself and a couple of others come"

"What, they're not reeking retribution in danger of spillage?" asked Buffy

The way she spoke annoyed Selene, but somehow not in a way that was really unpleasant.

"No," she said, "call me when you're… free" she said, casting an amused expression around, not quite smiling but humour glinted in her eye. She noticed the red-tinted one was staring with no disguised longing at Michael. That was an unexpected perk.

Willow couldn't help noticing how Selene's clothes made her look like a kind of casually-dressed agent on a mission. She also saw from the way she stood that they were both walking armouries.

When they left Sydney pressed the door securely shut and grinned

'The Creepy Couple, they know how to make an entrance'

Willow, Kennedy and Dawn spoke at the same time

'So that was Selene…'

'So that was Michael…'

Buffy rolled her eyes, while Willow and Kennedy gave each other reproachful looks that changed smoothly into identical looks that said "I know what you'll be wearing later when we're alone…"

"I could handle having an ally like that" said Dawn wistfully

"Hey, what about that guy at school?" asked Buffy

Dawn now went to school in England where Giles acted as her guardian and taught her more useful Watcher-ing skills like studying more Ancient Sumarian, Ancient Egyptian and so on. The upside of this was that half the time Buffy and various slayers were asking her for advice. That was Scoobie-dom if there was ever.

Recently, though, a lower sixth had asked her to the Sixth Form* Valentine's Ball.

***Author's Note: Translation of English school system; we have two Senior years, Lower and Upper Sixth, Dawn had started English school pretty soon after the apocalypse in Forth Form, and is this year in Fifth Form, her final year of GCSEs, A Levels (taken in Upper Sixth) are the final school exams getting you into university or a job – could someone explain to me the American system?**

"Sometimes I don't know what he's talking about, at least Michael's American" said Dawn absently

"So, what do you wanna do?" asked Buffy hastily, cutting off Leanne's answering remark, being English herself and having a sharper tongue than even Buffy.

"See the sights" said Willow

"Shopping!" said Kennedy

Somehow the vote went to shopping.

Selene and Michael looked like an average couple, walking around hand in hand, looking around them in mild interest. They had gone to the older side of town, even going through art galleries and museums. Selene said very little, but she kept hold Michael's hand and simply seemed to be taking everything in. She still looked at light reflections in water and mirrors a lot.

In the art gallery they had looked at some landscape paintings and Selene had frowned for a moment and muttered

"I never actually looked at something, really look, that wasn't for war"

"I guess not many galleries open at night" said Michael quietly

This got a smile, and they walked on. They walked all day, simply taking everything in.

"You know this is our first date" said Michael, as they stood outside a baker. Selene nodded.

It had taken her three years to stop behaving like a war machine, Michael had had to ask her to teach him to use various weapons at first, then languages, he'd even bought books to read aloud to her while they drove from place to place (they had adopted the truck they had stolen the day Markus had come for them), and slowly, Selene took an interest.

They were walking down an alley when Selene's mood suddenly went into mission-mode.

"Something's wrong" she said, letting go of his hand. The a cleaver twice as wide as Michael's hand buried itself into the door they were beside, exactly where Selene's head had just been before Michael pulled her out of the way.

Suddenly there were weapons flying out of a window directly above them, made from what looked like bits of metal junk. And for some reason, a child's toy that spun as you threw it to send great splashes of water everywhere, hitting both Selene and Michael, who were in a doorway for cover, right in the face. They burst out of their pretty shoddy cover and leapt upwards, both taking the first windowsill they could reach and leaping onto the opposite wall, where they both landed on the rail of a windowsill terrace holding plant pots, and leapt in the window of their attacker, landing on their feet after a perfect roll, and found themselves in a large cage made of odd bits of wood and steel, with crosses nailed or soldered on, above and around them.

Michael, who had transformed along the way, simply pulled the cage to pieces, and darted after a small figure that burst from the corner she'd been in.

"It's a kid" he said in surprise, already transforming back again, holding a struggling girl by the forearm.

She was putting up a good fight. Michael picked her up by the upper arms and lifted her lightly off the floor, and looked at Selene. Selene looked at the glaring girl, and frowned curiously

"We're not what you think" she said to her in German

"Ja, naturlich," said the girl, still struggling, "Sie sind schmelzen nicht!"

"Why would we melt?" asked Selene, and then realised, "Oh, the holy water-bombs"

Michael actually chuckled. And got a backwards kick in the chest.

Buffy had come back from town early because Dawn needed the phone to call Giles. Some of the girls had come with because they wanted an early shot at the shower. The others were having an Italian.

As she got a can of coke from the fridge, there was a knock on the fire escape. That was odd, it was only just seven. She hadn't thought the lycans would want to meet so early.

Freya opened the door and Buffy saw the strange expression on Selene's face.

"We have something of yours" and lifted a girl by the backpack into view.

"What?" asked Buffy, amazed, as other slayers walked in to see what the fuss was about

'We got a rain of weapons, including a holy water-bomb, in the middle of an alley, and then on coming through her window, landed in a box that would have trapped your kind of vampires very securely, we thought it would be best to bring her to you'

She put the child down, who said something in German that everyone understood and raise their eyebrows.

"Anna, if you'd…"

"Anna's not here," said one of the girls, "all the Germans aren't"

"Oh… does she speak English?" asked Buffy worriedly

"No" said Michael

Selene walked in and said something to the girl, who narrowed her eyes and looked at the girls around her. And asked Selene something

"I just told her that she was like you, and she asked for proof"

The slayers grinned an instantly whipped around stakes and assorted weapons, even a crossbow whose adapted shoulder-rest made it into an improvised cross should the slayer need it.

The girl smiled, impressed, and saw crosses hung, stuck or leaned on, near or over the windows, doors, and behind Michael, the fire exit.

The Buffy sat the girl down and Selene translated Buffy's "welcome to the rest of your freaky life" speech.

The girl turned out to be thirteen, adopted into a family she hated (who didn't seem to think much of her either) and called Sophie.

"And she says she killed three monsters, the bikers" said Selene, her voice quietly impressed, and listened to the girl's stream of words and added "she set traps using herself as bait – she cuts her forearms and leaves a trail of blood, leads them into a warehouse where she has a hinged trapdoor that she pulls a rope to operate, which drops them into a pit filled with spikes she made from metal fences and bits of pieces, and drops these crates she nailed together, they have… they have metal fence parts slotted through the bottom, she solders silver points on the end which stay inside the monsters when she pulls the rope up."

There was a silence, and Dawn finally asked

"Does anyone find that cool and kinda creepy?"

Buffy looked at Sophie, who was asking Selene questions.

"So, what are you?"

Selene smiled, 'It's complicated – we are not demons but we are immortal'

"Really?"

"So these dreams she spoke of," said Selene, indicating Buffy with a small movement of her head, "you got them and knew you had to kill these monsters?"

'Yeah, well, they were just a gang no one likes, and then I knew what they were…'

"Um, can I just ask," said Buffy to Selene, "if she's OK to leave with us after we're all done here? Like, when we leave Berlin?"

Selene looked at Buffy for a moment, and realised what Buffy had actually come here for; her slayers all came from parts in Europe that, when you listened to the accents, traced a fairly neat line from Spain upwards. She was finding new slayers just woken up to their destiny. The girl had surprised her by being so young but she had come here for her.

'Ja, naturlich!' said Sophie once she understood

Buffy nodded and got on the phone to Anna.

Michael continued chatting to the other slayers, comparing what they each knew of the places they had been. They had all visited the capital cities, and had apparently been in Dublin at the same time. Selene preferred not to remember Ireland, the Lycans had the Irish sense of resentment bred into them _before_ they were being hunted for their race (and for some of them, it was at the same time as the Troubles, so they never really got over it), Selene and Michael arriving on their shores had simply looked like another lot of people looking to conquer and kill. Selene had scars from them.

"So you and Michael became immortals by drinking blood?" asked Sophie

"How do you know that we do?" asked Selene, intrigued

"I followed you back, and looked in from the tourist look-out stage on the church with binoculars"

Selene was impressed, and then made a mental note to close the curtains before doing that again.

"Well, no, it's not," she explained how vampires were made, and how most of them didn't survive the transformation, and how she had the immortal blood and the vampire blood but the Lycan curse just didn't affect her, despite Michael having immortal blood and the curse of both species.

Sophie listened, looking, no- staring, at Selene with grey eyes that looked older than she was. Anyone who's met someone who's gone through the adoption system in any country will agree they never look their age.

"How old were you, when you were bitten?" she asked

"I was twenty-three" said Selene, and nodded at Michael, "A year younger than him, but I'm nearly 700 years older" she added, smiling

At this point Anna came in. Sophie smiled at her and they then sat at the table, where one of the girls had put two mugs of tea (black, one sugar; for some reason Germans rarely put milk in their tea, in Russia it's actually weird if you do).

Buffy looked at Michael chatting to the girls and came down and sat opposite Selene.

"Looks we're allies whether we like it or not" said Selene, smiling slightly

Buffy smiled and nodded, "It's kinda useful, I mean, you're a walking slayer-magnet and we could both use the help"

'The three who arrived today aren't slayers' said Selene, stating rather than asking

"What, you can tell?" asked Buffy

"They all wear clothes that don't hide weapons easily and they don't have the look of someone who's used to killing"

Buffy nodded.

"Willow's a witch," she said, "she's the one that made all slayers become slayers at the same time instead of potentials"

"So magic exists" said Selene, lowering an eyebrow to make a half frown

"Looks like" said Buffy, shrugging

Selene nodded and decided whatever magic could do, she'd prefer not to have much more to do with it. Buffy gave her a fellow-sufferer look and then asked when the meeting was

"Ten tonight" said Selene, "the club's closed, so we're meeting there"


	3. PEACE IT IS what are you doing Friday?

They all met outside the club five minutes early. Michael and Selene had at first arrived early on the roofs on the street opposite, but when the slayers arrived at just about the same time, they decided it was more polite to make themselves known.

Buffy had chosen Willow, Kennedy and Sydney. Michael took a signal even Buffy missed and came forward to Willow to show her the use of a gun (Willow was politely blank) and Selene leaned over and muttered to Buffy and Buffy sighed.

"Really?"

"May as well make use of it" Selene smiled

"Sophie," called Buffy, turning to face an alley across the road,

Sophie came out grinning, and said something to Selene

"She thought if she wasn't going to in the main event she could at least be there to send everyone home" said Selene, using her tone to convey her amusement and scepticism

Buffy raised her eyebrows, and Willow chuckled

"She's sounds like you, Buffy, only smaller, and has that wild-child thing going on"

"I'm a wild child! Put me in a mall and I was all teeth and nails!"

"I like her" said Kennedy, giving Sophie a big smile and beckoning her over with a flick of her head. Sophie grinned at her and took off her rucksack, which clanked heavily, and just launched into a list of German without asking Selene to translate.

"She has a small crossbow with six silver-tipped bolts, four katanas, seven silver daggers and a silver-dust bomb and three…' at which point, Sophie pulled out a large, broad knife about as long as her arm from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, "three knife-things." The slayers looked blankly at her until the smile on Sophie's face faded, and asked Selene a question

"She says the geeky weapons collector never seemed to do anything with them so she thought they might be useful for once" said Selene, "and she wants to know what she's done wrong…"

Michael snorted, Selene hit him in the chest but she was grinning too

Buffy simply held out her hand for the knife, caught it and swung it experimentally. It made a pleasant whirring noise, and handed it back

"Tell her to look cute, hold Kennedy's hand and just… just stay with her" she ordered wearily, then added to Willow "put a force-field-thing round her until we need that many pointy things"

Willow nodded, smiling wryly. Sophie reluctantly took Kennedy's hand and Willow took her other hand, and used the contact to centre her field. She added a binding spell as well, just in case Sophie tried to let go of her hand.

Michael suddenly looked down the road and said

"They're coming"

It was a full couple of minutes before the slayers could hear the distant rumble of motorbikes. The noise reminded Buffy of Spike.

The memory wasn't exactly painful, Buffy missed having people around who understood her like Spike had, not as the slayer like the girls did, or as someone you loved despite the slayer-ing, like Willow and Dawn did… Selene appeared to be the only one who looked at her like Spike did; as a comrade. It made her more uncomfortable than she meant to be.

She had Michael, though. They were very different people but they moved and acted utterly unconsciously like two halves of the same organism. Buffy saw they even breathed at the same time, totally in sync, on the ball, watching the Lycans.

Selene sensed it and wondered if it was because they had changed; Michael's nails and eyes (which weren't quite so black, but his irises made a pale ring against the dark grey that filled the sclera) had changed and Selene's eyes were pale blue and her teeth were, behind her lips, a little sharper. Selene watched the Lycans group arrive a little closer and simply felt more aware. It was as much a habit as anything. She studied Buffy without taking her eyes off the cyclists.

She must see us as demons, she mused, or at least like demons, she's spent her life killing everything non-human... perhaps if things go wrong she won't see the difference between us.

"You needed us here, didn't you?" said Buffy quietly, coming to stand next to her so she could talk privately, her arms crossed.

That wasn't really true, Selene hadn't planned on humans helping the treaty at any stage except for possible leverage, but this was certainly preferable.

She made eye contact and nodded once.

The bikers halted in the small patch of gravel that served as the road's public parking. The bikers dismounted, but only one came over. A boy really, must have been as old as seventeen when he was bitten, but his eyes gave him away as leader.

Selene liked people who gave you a physical warning before they blew up in your face, the ones who made you guess whether they were a threat or not were far more dangerous

Buffy hated everything he was wearing.

"Canst du Inglisch sprechen?" asked Selene

"Yes" said the boy, "my name is Daniel, Razor's death made me leader"

Selene could smell blood emanating from him, and she saw the Lycan clan he was leading were nervous of him. That probably meant he'd killed half of them already to prove himself.

Only because you killed for it, thought Selene approvingly

"I am Selene; this is Michael," she said and added, "Hybrids"

"And your human friends?" asked Daniel, eyeing Buffy and her companions speculatively

"Buffy, Kennedy and Sydney" said Buffy, "slayers"

"Of?" asked Daniel, his expression cold

"Traditionally, vampires" said Buffy, who just as she spoke realised why Selene had wanted her – not just for strength in allies but to convince the leader that she had not come to fight; there was someone here who was meant to threaten Selene.

'And they?' asked Daniel, at Willow and Sophie

"Oh, Willow," said Willow, "Witch," she then indicated Sophie and said "she's my apprentice"

"You smell... strange" said Daniel, edging closer, "there is something... it makes my head spin"

"I'm using magic" said Willow, clutching Sophie's hand and she noticed Sophie eyeing Daniel with something looking dangerously like a challenge in her expression, and doubled the strength of the binding spell, "she's practising a defensive spell"

Daniel answered Sophie's look with one of his own, only cockier and more like a sneer; _I _don't have some obviously gay woman holding _my hand_ like we're on a school trip.

"We shall go inside" he said, and led the way, and stopped and pointed to Buffy and Selene, "only you and you come"

Buffy raised her eyebrows "Sorry, kid, we all go or we have a pow-wow out here"

Daniel looked at Selene as if expecting some kind of backing up to be forthcoming or something, but found she hadn't moved from Michael's side, raising her eyebrow and smirking very slightly. Michael hadn't cracked a grin yet but gave him a look men give to each other; _way of the world, man, you're not going to win this because you're a man._

Daniel gave a disgusted noise and beckoned them all inside with a jerk of his head.

Buffy followed him, but gave Selene a look that clearly asked: what did he expect?

Selene only glanced at her with an eyebrow raised: this boy's clearly a fool.

Willow noticed Sophie was being unusually docile and wondered if she should be adding other precautions. She also remembered that she was the one with silver weapons and took the second layer of binding off.

"You spilled more of our blood" said Daniel, once they'd sat around the snooker table

"Actually, that was us" said Buffy, Daniel made a dismissive noice which made her whip out her cast iron stake (just in case of something that needed staking where wood wouldn't take) and buried it in the wood on the edge. Daniel stared wide-eyes at her and then narrowed his eyes

"Is it magic?" he asked

"Well, no, it's a real stake" snapped Buffy

"She has powers beyond human, without the witch's help" said Selene

"The witch's help saved the world, actually" said Kennedy icily

At which point things started getting complicated.

"So the witch kills Lycans" said Daniel, at which everyone besides the hybrids looked confused

"He means Razor's death," said Selene evenly, "which was me" she added

"Yes, I mean this" said Daniel impatiently. Selene looked at Sophie and found she was still holding Willow's hand, and noticed that she was even gripping back. After a couple of seconds, the same dawning of comprehension of the other slayers brightened her expression. Selene thought this was useful to know.

"You say you want truce" said Daniel, picking up his thread again, "you are known as Männlich-Mörd, and you want peace?"

Selene sighed, "I was lied to. Viktor told me your kind killed my family, when I realised the truth I killed him myself, and Lucian has died seeing his hybrid dream become reality, there is no reason for the war to continue, and every day we come closer to being found by the human world"

"This is not forgetting Alexander Corvinus had been covering us all this time," said Michael, "his men had instructions to kill all of us if the war starts to get out of control, and it nearly was, and none of us can last a three-way war to the death"

Daniel nodded, and then fixed his seemingly permanent glare at Buffy

"And you are here for what?"

"The human side" said Buffy, "there are thousands of slayers all over the world, and our job description is to protect the human world from monsters"

Daniel's eyes flickered onto the cast iron stake and nodded once.

There was a moment of quiet until Daniel sighed

'My kind was made to be slaves, and made to hide and fight for our right to live, because we are free... and our leader offended your leader. I was born into my race, and when I was young my father told me the only way to be free was to kill every vampire. He died with my mother in a fight we didn't need to fight – I think he even provoked it... for a year, things have been different. I have heard of humans that can kill Lycans and vampires, I have even lost friends in places that smell like your witch's apprentice"

Sophie looked uncomfortable for a second as Willow's translation spell filtered into her head, but she gave Daniel a look and a shrug that clearly said "what do you expect?"

Selene and Michael tensed, but to their surprise Daniel simply looked at her, intrigued, for a moment longer than was casual, just pensively.

Daniel took a deep breath, returning his attention to the table and said

"I control the vote from the northern borders and down the Rhine river," he said, "the Lycans here will not like anything that does not mean more killing of vampires, but they enjoy living, they will learn to live with a truce"

There was a silence for a second, and then Selene and Michael thanked Daniel, smiling and even in Michael's case, slapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand. Daniel was certainly surprised and muttered something about Americans.

They all began to part ways outside the club, but just before Selene saw Daniel talking to Sophie in a low voice, which caused her to laugh

'What?' asked everyone at once

"He just asked her what she's doing later" said Selene, grinning. Buffy looked at the young couple and saw they were giving each other a half-smiling, appraising look at each other. Daniel nodded and then walked away to his group of waiting Lycans on bikes, and Sophie returned to the group. She said something to the world in general, which Selene translated

"She says there are up-sides to this job"


	4. You know what teenagers are like

Selene seemed to have changed into someone else completely. They had gone back to Buffy's place for a celebratory pizza and mixers. Michael noticed Sophie seemed to be following Selene around her. This became most apparent when she laughed at English jokes and said she didn't want pizza either because Selene didn't (even though she'd ordered one herself, but the other slayers didn't make too much of a fuss of this). Selene laughed good naturedly with everyone else (the result of Michael's efforts to get her to socialise)and Michael tried to politely ignore Dawn's stares in his direction.

Till Sophie asked Selene a question. The smile, as there as it ever was, fell from Selene's face. Sophie's friendly smile was fixed unnaturally on her face, her eyes betraying the sinisterness of the question.

'What?' he murmured

'She asked how I became a vampire'

Michael felt the mood of the room change, become brighter, colder and brittle, like electricity tapped from a freezer.

Selene had only mentioned her own turning when it was strictly necessary, and had not let out any details, only a young, precocious teenager would even think of trying for the actual story.

'Uh, I think we could use another round of pizza,' said Buffy, getting up, 'what do you all want?'

Selene rose, making pleasant excuses to go, but Sophie, not smiling anymore, pulled against Willow's restraining hand and asked a harsher question, but Willow kept hold of her hand and muttered a few words, and her eyes suddenly changed from brown to green, Sophie's eyes. She let go of her hand.

'"Why would you become a monster?"' she said, nearly in Sophie's own voice

Michael, confused and apprehensive, saw Selene's expression turn back to her old mask. It would frost the windows.

"Because I chose to"

Sophie's and Willow's eyes narrowed in sync, too much in sync.

'"And that is an answer? What makes someone want to drink people's blood all their life, to kill every day?"'

"You think I enjoy it? That blood was the reason?"

Michael knew better than to move, like all the slayers

"Willow, stop it!" commanded Buffy quietly

"It needs to be said" Willow answered quickly

'"I saw you!'"

"You saw me drink blood from the fridge!" snapped Selene, now more confused

'"You know where it's from!"'

Selene frowned

"It is human blood," she said slowly, "from a blood-bank"

'"But you know him"' Sophie countered maliciously

Selene nodded, "He's one of our contacts, our coven knew his father, and when he took over the business – the blood is from donors"

'"Not from from volunteers!"'

Willow's face coursed with tears. Sophie only glared, every muscle locked and tense.

Michael suddenly crouched down and took her by the elbows

"Where is he?"

'"The same place as always,"' said Sophie, now glaring ferociously glaring at him, '"waiting for you"'

"Selene" said Michael, looking up over his shoulder

"Buffy" said Selene, looking at Buffy who had accidentally crushed the hotel phone in her hand

"Whatever he is, we're taking him down" she answered

Willow suddenly cut the contact and leaned against Kennedy who was ready behind her with her arms open.

"You should have felt it," said Willow quietly, but Michael and Selene could both hear, "she's lost someone, and she's... been hurt" she put a hand on her left inside elbow exactly as Sophie did. Sophie saw everyone was suddenly watching her, and took off her jacket. There was nothing to see at first, but when Selene came forward and inspected her arm, there were many tiny marks following the vein down her arm.

Sophie said something to her, which Selene translated

"There used to be a whole gang, now there's just her"

Buffy came and stood just in front of Selene's left shoulder

"How did he get you?"

Selene translated in a low, flat voice

"She says he would come while you're alseep, and when you wake up it's too late, because he breathes over you, and then you can't move, like you're dreaming but you're awake... he drinks half of it himself... And I don't mind adding he charges a fortune for the rest"

"Its definitely a demon" said Buffy, and looked behind her, but only to get her jacket because everyone else was ready

"So how do we find him?" asked Buffy to Selene and Michael. She noticed Micheal's eyes had gone black and Selene's had gone a strange pale-green. Selene held up a phone, and in ten minutes they were all out of the fire exit (Willow and Kennedy staying with Sophie) and swarming MI-5 style over the rooftops to what Selene said he called his 'workshop'.

"So how would she survive?" asked Selene to Buffy

"She was a potential," said Buffy as they jumped across the mainstreet "they seem to have some kinda extra strength that isn't like slayer strength but they are tougher than normal, but now she's a slayer she'll have enough power to keep him away"

They all arrived outside the building, with the old man waiting outside his garage-style entrance. Selene looked at the front again, and realised anyone could make their shop look like a blood donation bank.

"I see these are your extra friends" said the man, but Buffy simply strode up to him and buried one of Sophie's knives deep in the spot his heart should be. The man gripped her hand in both his own and let out a terrible scream, hoarse but somehow incredubly loud and high-pitched, his eyes bulging unnaturally wide and his mouth black on the inside as is stretched longer than it should be able to. Buffy yanked her knife and whirled around, using the momentum to swing the knife around to cut off his head.

An answering rage of screams issued out of the workshop. Buffy looked at Michael and Selene, and walked in

"I can't help wondering if she meant for you all to come," said Selene, "perhaps she just meant for me to go"

'Warum?' asked Anna

"I was watching her," said Selene, "she didn't want you to come, this was meant to be a suicide mission"

"She knew there was a nest" said Buffy

"Well she doesn't know how many Lycans we've killed without any weapons" said Michael, and transformed.

Selene smiled inwardly; as we're here...


	5. Sophie's Warehouse

Selene and Michael knew how to fight groups, but never with backup. Selene gave a few short signals and Michael nodded.

The demons that came pouring out of the blood-bank were much keener on going after the slayers than herself and Michael, but she simply coordinated.

Buffy looked at Selene, who was taking a defensive tack with Michael, using Buffy and the slayers as the attraction while they kept the pressure scattered and, Buffy noticed, really evenly. She'd never seen anyone fight so... clinical.

'Selene!' she shouted, and beckoned with her hand, wanting another sword, which Selene and Michael had brought lots of along the way.

Selene's eyes had gone a very pale green. Buffy caught the sword and hesitated. Selene continued her gaze; she'd noticed Buffy's surprise. Then fighting continued.

Then the last of them came out, and there was a universal horrified pause.

It was a gang of young teenagers, some looked about twelve or even younger. They lasted about a few seconds, because they'd all had to pass Michael and Selene.

Then Buffy, by some initiative, looked at the roof of the building behind them, and there sat Sophie, who disappeared a second later.

"Let her go" said Selene, who had appeared very suddenly at her shoulder (Buffy hated it when vampires could cross a space of about thirty feet in a heart-beat).

"Why?" asked Anna, frowning worriedly

"She's seen" said Selene, then walked off and crouched down beside a demon.

Michael, who had gone round collecting the borrowed swords and weapons, had arrived to Buffy's right and smiled

"She means that she's seen us fight on the same side, while her friends were the monsters"

"And," said Selene, who had come to a closer body which had been dead longer and was turning into a chalk-like substance and blowing away in the wind, "she'll know we all are, at least in part for some"

Buffy saw her eyes were brown again. She then looked at Anna and nodded

Anna took four big strides at a run and leapt onto the roof where Sophie had disappeared and took off over it.

"You shouldn't be alone through that" said Buffy, and took off after her.

The other slayers went home.

Selene and Michael turned and headed the opposite way to their apartment.

"I'd guess that's how you did it, when you were bitten?" asked Michael, Selene nodded

"Late Medieval England was that kind of place, you just dealt with it, alone if you really had troubles with it"

Michael nodded once. Emotions weren't pointy (usually) and couldn't kill Lycans.

He sensed a pang of something like remorse from Selene, and looked at her.

"You still wish you hadn't turned me" he said

Selene still kept her eyes ahead

"It led us here, I don't regret that" she said

"But?"

"We're the same as those teenagers, they had no choice what happened, and they lived however they could... they just..."

"Didn't get to keep their souls" said Michael, itching to take her hand but knew better, and knew from experience not to open the door to the building for her

There was a long silence going up the stairs.

"You think we've kept ours?" asked Selene, fishing the key out

"You don't?" demanded Michael, grabbing her arm as she tried to unlock the door, Selene looked at him and tugged her arm gently, just to tell him to let go. Michael let go and they walked inside

"We're immortal, Michael," she said as she dropped her bag by the door, "you have no idea what I've done, and you've come back to the dead on an empty tank; we are nothing near human"

She was suddenly forced against the wall with both of Michael's elbows placed against the door just above her shoulders, so his arms boxed her head. Then her heartbeat picked up about plus ten a minute and felt his do the same, and saw a mix of a grin and a glare in his face.

"You think I could come back from the dead, for you, if I had no soul?"

Selene's hands had risen magnetically up to his biceps

"I thought we'd agreed you went into some kind of stasis"

"I can sense the difference between you and those... things," said Michael, slightly more forcefully, "and the Lycans William made – William was only a little different, and that was only a spark when he saw Markus, and you honestly think you're like that?"

Selene looked down

Then they were suddenly on the bed. This was honestly a bit disorientating – she had only felt a slight breeze and the scene before had only changed a little at the edges, except now they were horizontal, and now Michael had rolled onto his side to face her.

"I think the way we changed didn't affect our minds or how they work" he said, an arm on her waist

"Michael, it affects _everything_, don't be naive" she murmured

"OK," he said, "I think you really understood why Sophie tried to trick us – anything to get some kind of justice for that kind of loss, right? Doesn't matter if it's revenge or taking out demons to protect the world, that doesn't matter"

Selene nodded, eyes trained on him

"That's basically some kind of proof of her soul, even if it's meant to be wrong" he said

Selene raised an eyebrow; prove your point, now.

"So why did you really go after Markus?"

Selene's shoulders relaxed and she looked down

"Hating him for killing you does not prove my soul is there or not, or worth anything, and revenge is a famously soul-destroying quality in anyone," she sat up and hugged her knees loosely to her chest, "Viktor managed to love me like a daughter"

Michael pulled her back, so she lay on his chest. She slid onto her side and put an arm around him, listening to his heart. He sighed.

Michael knew the betrayal and loss of Victor was going to haunt them for centuries.

"I think Viktor would have killed everyone eventually," he said, "then all he'd have left would be to kill himself, some people are just made like that"

Selene didn't say anything. Michael exhaled, wrapping his arms around her, so his chin was just level with her forehead, and listened to her breathe. He still felt the thrill of her letting her guard down.

Selene lay in his arms, and thought about the slayers. She tried to wish things you were meant to wish for the love of your life; that Michael had been born at the right time and place to have met and be protected by Buffy (even if things would have been very different that way), but death had taken him briefly from her and she knew she wouldn't surrender him to anything else after that. She wanted to not feel this was all completely as it should be. It was selfish and she didn't care.

She didn't care much if she had a soul either. This was fine.

Buffy and the other slayers had stopped at the edge of the line of houses they had been running on, staring at the hole in the window about level with the roof-line and there was broken glass just below it.

Buffy took out her phone and dialled.

"What's wrong?" came Selene's voice after two rings

"What makes you think we didn't get her?" asked Buffy, frowning

That didn't even get an answer

"She's in her warehouse, it's on..." Buffy looked around for a street-sign, which was hard from her perspective

"Two minutes" said Selene, and the phone cut off

Even less, as it turned out.

"You know Lycans better not be able to move that fast" said Buffy, looking incredibly unimpressed

Selene just barely smiled "No"

"Willow's put a field-thingy around the warehouse," said Buffy, over a great booming crash from inside, 'she did another thing, it was about mood or something, she said she's a danger to everyone right now"

Selene waited

"She says two can get in, when we've got the kid we signal the girls and Willow takes it off"

"Why us?" asked Selene curiously

"Willow said until she remembered you were "a monster" she really liked you, and I'm the general"

Selene frowned, or rather her eyebows twitched downwards. She thought Michael was going to be the other one.

"Why would she forget?" she asked

"You don't selectively forget things?' asked Buffy

Selene's eyes changed to blue "Rarely"

Buffy paused a second and sighed "Must be part of vampire-with-a-soul 101 manual" she said, almost exasperated, then added "Never mind" to everyone, who were collectively confused

Selene looked at Michael, who had a smug expression on his face

"Shut up" she muttered

At that, Buffy and Selene lined up, about eight feet from the edge of the roof and gave each other a very brief look, and sprinted.

Selene took off about two strides before Buffy did, and shot through the hole as if from a bow.

Buffy ignored that and jumped cleanly through the same hole.

Selene was casually checking her weapons on the other side of the room. Buffy lightly rolled onto her feet and painfully ignored the little rip on the bottom of her jeans (from Madrid), and nodded at Selene, who just seemed to accept it and walk through the door.

"You've known other vampires with souls?" asked Selene quietly as they made their way to a lower section of the building where the bashing and crashing was coming from; down the stairs

"A few" said Buffy as she passed Selene down the hall onto the landing. They were keeping cover on each other by progressing corner-by-corner in turns.

"How did you know that they had souls?" Asked Selene as she approached the corridor's entrance, and then kept her back to the wall as she passed round the corner. She went down the first steps that led to the corner where they turned. Buffy passed her and went to the opposite side of the corner

"You just know, you know? You'd know when someone's evil"

Selene didn't answer, and crossed down the first half of the stairs

"So can your vampires stick to the ceiling?" Buffy asked, so quietly a human would have just heard a few sounds on a breath. Selene smiled very slightly

"Not often, only when they get a bad scare"

_They_, thought Buffy.

"You don't?" she asked, as they edged forward together to the banister to check the terrain below. There were five more storeys to go.

"Never tried," answered Selene, as they went abreast to go across the landing, "I always jump and have a weapon on me"

Buffy nodded, much like her own tactics. She'd found that the heavier silver and cast-iron stakes were better for throwing at things attacking her; she'd once thrown her cast-iron stake so hard it went through two demon's necks and stuck three-quarters of the way in another demon's temple, just as Kennedy had kicked him in the stomach. Kennedy hadn't appreciated it.

Then the floor swung downwards.

Buffy had a very strange sensation, she had reached to grab something to hold on to, but had found her arms pinned to her side, much like a dream when you try to run but can't and you only just realised. Then there was a thump.

Selene let go of Buffy on the first roll and allowed her to come to a stop on her own. This was when she hit the wall. Selene got up, and checked she still had her weapons. Buffy got up and they just shared a look to check they were OK, and Selene looked around

"We need to be somewhere else right now"

Oddly, the sounds hadn't ceased, the vibrations of whatever she was doing (which sounded like frantic bashing of something heavy in the foundations of the building), but she now knew where they were.

Selene looked down, and then beckoned Buffy over.

When they landed, Buffy let go of her grip around Selene's stomach and breathed deeply

"You've never jumped like that before?" asked Selene, amused

"I survived a few falls," said Buffy, glaring, "just not five storeys up with the ground rushing..."

Selene smiled and looked around her. Something odd had been catching her attention since she had got here, and it was just starting to make sense.

"Have you noticed something about the sounds?"

"What?"

'It's three sounds, repeated, listen'

To Buffy, it was just a noise, and then it started to become clear. It was three sounds, one big 'thunk' that happened once every so often, a regular smaller smash, and an intermittent metallic kind of bang.

They moved forward one step, on their way to opposite corners of the room, and then floor fell through.

Teenagers, the clinically insane, and people who really need help all have a strange kind of talent of pushing away those who could really help them. All you can do, most of the time, is be there for them to know that you're there to lean on. Psychologists call it 'Indirect Supportive Atmosphere'.

Sophie had seen as much pain as both Selene and Buffy, and had watched her friends disappear (and unfortunately, reappear, briefly) and had lived deep in her rage and terror for months, with an equally destructive adopted family, and then had received the Slayer visions (which didn't give her the same happy certainty the kid holding a baseball bat had experienced) with its torrent of slayer memories; their violent deaths, a mass of hard-boiled knowledge about killing demons and a very real need to kill them, and then came the strength and skill to do so. Add that to a genius mind that was particularly talented at traps, weapons and pain.

Buffy and Selene had both put her nervous energy and rather frightening enthusiasm for killing down to young-and-a-slayer kind of thing. They hadn't stood much chance in her funhouse of scares; Sophie had over-compensated her traps, determined that they should kill any demons (or preferably lots of them) as dead as they could go... in fairness, before the jump Buffy had been four steps up from a much worse than the one they were in now.

For now, though, they were trapped in a hole filled with water. It had lots of crosses on the sides and some rosaries on the bottom.

They had sunk about twenty feet before finding the bottom and kicking back up again. While Buffy struggled to get her breath back, Selene investigated. She wished Sophie wasn't quite so good; she had found the underwater stream that came from the nearby mountains, on which the warehouse used to run on, which now doubled as a storm drain.

Buffy, more practically, was figuring out that they couldn't escape. The walls were roughly round, wider then an arm-span, and laid in (worryingly neatly) was a thick layer of some very hard metal alloy.

Buffy had tried using her cast-iron spike, jamming it hard into the metal, but it was too brittle for such abuse and shattered. Unhelpfully, if Selene or Buffy tried to grip it hard enough to make some kind of escape by catapaulting off each other or similar, it would cut their hand in half.

There were a few minutes while they thought about what to do. And then the building collapsed.

Detritus, like pieces of glass, brick and wood, along with an amazing amount of dust.

"She took too much from the foundations" said Selene

There was a tense silence

"So, how did you and Michael meet?"

Selene wondered, much later, why she had answered.

"Like I told you, he's the human descendant of Michael Corvinus, and the Lycans were after him. I met him by coincidence on a hunting mission of two Lycans, who were there to get Michael. They opened fire on us in the middle of an underground station, in a full crowd. I caught up with Michael afterwards to interrogate him about why Lycans wanted him"

"And what did they want, with him I mean?" asked Buffy, who wondered if all English people left out the bits that made conversations make sense

Selene wondered if Buffy had attention-span problems

"He was the only one who could be made a hybrid; Lucian intended to make him a weapon, an ally" she added, with a deep, unreadable expression

Buffy felt the numbness starting to creep in and did the thing she knew English people didn't like; she pressed

"So… the Lycans were after him, but they didn't get him?"

"Lucian did, I was there a second too late, but he didn't become a hybrid until I knew what he was, and it was all I could do to save him at the time – Kraven, a traitor of the Covens, shot him full of silver, I think out of jealousy as much as orders"

"You were ordered to kill him, by who?"

Selene was quiet for a while. She contemplated not answering, until she heard Buffy's heart begin to work harder under the threat of pneumonia.

"Viktor... he was the biggest traitor of us all, the war started between him and Lucian, he thought he could finish it that night, but I killed him for lying to me and trying to kill Michael"

"I know what that's like," said Buffy, "I had a boyfriend that wasn't allowed, he's a vampire, but he has a soul…"

It had tortured her, changed her and hardened her. Selene saw it. She was impressed.

"I forgot I had one for a long time before Michael," said Selene, nearly sighing but controlling herself, "I looked at him once for a moment, when I first met him in the underground, but…"

"You changed" finished Buffy, Selene made eye contact and frowned a little

"You must have been very young"

"Sixteen," shrugged Buffy, "Juliette was younger"

"And those were different times," said Selene, musing, "I was twelve when my older sister was married, my father couldn't bear losing us, he insisted she stayed close, and when her husband died he immediately took her and her daughters back home. I had always looked after them both, and then I looked after them all… when Viktor killed them and took me, I didn't even think of myself as me, because I was them... and they were dead"

Buffy nodded.

"My mom died on the couch, ten minutes before I came home… I had to go tell my sister, Dawn, she couldn't stand, she was screaming and holding on to me so hard, I didn't know how there was anything there for her to hold, I co-uldnnn't fffeell…"

The two of them regarded each other for a moment, Selene's mask having melted and Buffy's defiance having cracked. Selene then pushed herself over to be behind her and wrapped both arms around her.

"Just hold on to your stake. My body temperature is a couple of degrees higher than a human's, which should at least keep pneumonia away for a bit longer"

"Hhhow long do you think tthey'll be?"

"We're underneath a collapsed, burning building,...the water will prevent Michael from sensing our heat, even with their combined strength it would take a long time for them to reach us, and then we'd have to attract their attention"

"Your typical day at the office," laughed Buffy, "llastt time I was in wwwater I died"

"You…?"

"Onnly for a minute," she said, grinning, "that was the first time,"

In the end Buffy had her head on Selene's shoulder, Selene used one arm to keep them both up feeling Buffy's heat-starved body suck the heat from her, it was an almost mortal feeling, she didn't enjoy it much and yet… she would gladly do it again.

She knew, however, that if someone, something, didn't arrive quick with some blood she was going to be shortening Buffy's odds. She'd tried for hours to keep her awake, and in a few moments when Selene was wondering if she should start asking her stupid questions like 'If you could have your life again, what would you have been?', and Buffy had fallen unconscious.

After a while, she tried shaking her again.

"Buffy, listen to me, focus, wake UP"

There was some reaction, but it was about as weak as her heart was becoming

"Tell me your mother's name"

"…?" you can't really describe a sound that isn't really a sound but still a question

"What is your mother's name?"

It took a few attempts, but it finally came out

"Joyce"

"Joyce who? Joyce who, stay with it!'

"…Summers'

"What's your sister's name?"

"… … Dawn... Summers"

"Right, who is your best friend?"

There was a long pause

"Buffy,' Selene demanded anxiously, "who is your best friend?"

"Willow"

"Willow who?"

But after that there were no more answers

Her heart was going dangerously slowly, and Selene was getting desperately thirsty

"How old were you when you became a Slayer?"

"The" said Buffy

"Hmm?"

"_The_ Slayer… only one then…"

"You're going to have to explain that one, especially if it's a long story" she added

For people who have never come round from unconsciousness, it's like being half-awake, only most of your mind thinks it's still asleep. Noises, colours and shapes lose all meaning and yet your brain's being assaulted by them until certain neurons kick together and start making some sense out of them. I'd imagine it's like being born.

Selene first recognised something. It was just a blank her brain found because it was there, it made itself known. Then,

MICHAEL

There was a pause as she considered it longer

MICHAEL ALIVE

And then nuerons started kicking off

MICHAEL'S BREATHING

"Selene?"

That was odd

"Selene, c'mon, wake up, you don't want to miss this"

Selene opened her eyes and focused on his eyes. Michael helped her up and Selene's memories just didn't stretch much further than Buffy's voice

"Did I...?" she demanded in panic, grabbing his arms

"Only enough enough to survive"

"I didn't...!"

"Hey, hey, it's alright, you just sucked the wound on her shoulder, no teeth"

Selene sighed and relaxed, and then looked up again "Miss what?"

They walked across a corridor. Selene would have to ask later whose house this was. It was big and grand, and then the door at the end opened.

Sophie was on a table, a make-shift hospital bed. She was covered in bits of gauze, two different IV feeds, and Willow was on the other side of the table, eyes closed and muttering while holding Sophie's hand and Kennedy's in the other. Michael muttered something about giving her strength to speak.

Selene absently pulled a chair across with her and sat beside her. Sophie looked at her. It was an unreadable, ancient expression. Selene just answered it with one of her own.

"I understand what you did" she whispered

Sophie looked at her

"I understand how it feels, and the pain, all of it, I spent six hundred years doing what you did, I was just pointed at Lycans first, and had people around who taught me to care about rules"

"I've done so many bad things" whispered Sophie, so softly it was just a little breath of pain

"It's OK," she said, leaning closer, to whipser more quietly, even though no one in the room understood German, "do you think there's a God?"

Sophie's eyes flickered; Selene was astounded; there was still a tiny spark of hope still left

"Ja" But then there were barely perceptible tears in her eyes, they just reflected the light just slightly more, "but He won't want me"

"You think He wouldn't understand?"

Sophie didn't answer; she didn't know. More like, why should He?

"Well I know a prayer, if you said it I think it would help"

It took an hour for Sophie to learn the words. When Buffy came up the stairs, she leaned against the door and watched Sophie and Selene recite

"Engel Gottes, Beschützer mein,  
lass mich dir empfohlen sein.  
Tag und Nacht, ich bitte dich:  
beschütz´, regier´ und leite mich.  
Hilf mir leben, gut und fromm,  
dass ich in den Himmel komm"

At that, there were small things said, and Sophie went.

Selene had got up and left without another word. Michael murmured to Buffy that she simply liked to be outside when she was upset. Buffy knew she would find her on the roof.

Michael came back an hour later, and was drinking from his coffee container.

"Is she okay?" asked Buffy, walking in

Michael finished his sip carefully and sighed

"She hasn't said anything, I'm not sure what's going on in her head"

"What d'you think's really getting her?" asked Buffy, sitting down, clutching a mug of tea.

"I think she just wanted to help her, but she already knew it was too late"

Buffy didn't answer. There were a lot of times she had thought it was too late for many of her friends. Repeatedly.

"You know, when I was first changed, into what I am,'"said Michael, "I thought I'd gone crazy, really crazy. There was... so much rage, I thought I'd kill myself by accident just trying to make sense of it, and then when I saw Viktor I just about remembered I had to kill him, and the whole thing got so quiet, so easy to focus. Then when Selene killed him, the first thing I remember feeling was the rage not going away, it just became _different_..."

"Well, that's just it, exactly," said Buffy, "when Mom was alive, and Dawn wasn't so mixed up in it, I just came home, and it was alright. I really thought I could just go home... later on, when the apocalypse was really bad, all my friends and Dawn told me to go, I saw they were scared and I was making it worse... I had a friend, Spike, he just wouldn't leave, and I swear to God, I could only think about how he loved me. Love saved us so many times; she just didn't have a chance..."

There was a long silence.

"I think the Lycans think it's the end of the world," said Michael, "they've been so hunted, and now a vampire's been made a hybrid, and I'm on her side, what are they supposed to think? I'm not even sure that kid believed us, I don't think they'll ever believe us"

Buffy looked at him, smiling a little

"You'd be surprised," she said warmly, "you two are the strongest people I've ever seen, you don't know what we've done with half the strength you have, and we did it just by doing it together... and you know, we have a _lot_ of experience in that. Now we're doing this... truce thing, we can show you.'

Michael smiled. It was nice to have some optimism spoken out loud occasionally.

'I think Selene could do with some of that, why don't you go talk to her?'

When Buffy sat next to Selene on the turret of the castle-style house they were in, the mountains appeared to somehow be even higher.

"Michael's worried" she said

"I'm worried" said Selene

"You're not fighting alone anymore" said Buffy

"I honestly don't know how we're meant to make peace with two races that hate us for being what we are, and hate each other inconsolably. That boy is going to go around and either batter other leaders into submission, making Michael and I look like another Viktor, or he won't get them to listen... Sophie at least managed to think about something else than killing when she died... that's all Corvinus wanted, he just wanted us to stop fighting. I saw in his memories all the fights he'd been in and had to clean up after, centuries of it... he asked me to stop it"

"I saw that prayer you did with her"

"I know"

Buffy then nudged her with an elbow

"Well this was meant to be the point, wasn't it?" said Buffy, "You get allies, enough to make them listen, and they'll see you have Lycans on your truce, it's not all falling buildings"

"I'm sorry i took some of your blood"

'I think we're even"

There was a pause

"You know being in Sophie's Warehouse felt like being in one of those psycho-thriller movies"

"I think if Sophie had made everything she had in her head we'd have never got out alive, even with an army of slayers and Michael"

Came pretty close, thought Buffy

"How can you think you have no soul?" she demanded. Selene looked sharply at her.

"I knew why you were asking me about it in Sophie's Warehouse," said Buffy, meeting her gaze head-on "and I saw how Michael looked at you before we went in. You know what people are like when they don't have one, or at least one that works? They kill because they can, they hate things like hope, Christmas, Mom's apple pie, they _feel_ bad to other people, your Viktor sounds like he was exactly like it – oh, they always have a reason, they always wanna look like they're right, and maybe sometimes they have a point, but God, you've had a soul for centuries, and it's _still working_... how it's doing that after all that can happen in one day makes me feel better. Angel only had one for a third of the time he was a vampire, and he can never be really happy, just for a minute. And you, you just refuse it, because you think if you enjoy being strong, being more than human, and loving someone, it makes you evil!"

Selene just exhaled out of her nose and looked away

"Well stop it now," said Buffy, "because you can't win if you don't deserve it, Michael already thinks you'll never get there, I can guess being with you for three years while you set yourself up for failure would do that to him, and he's like a demi-god! I faced gods, I killed one, and he's just a strong as them, and you are just weighing you both down!'

There was a silence, and Buffy walked back inside. She wondered if there was ever going to be a day when she didn't have to 'speechify' someone.

Buffy saw Michael and Selene jump down from the tower and land a good fifty feet away, and head off into the mountains, most likely for one of those talks.

Two hours later, which had been enough to catch up properly with Willow (and holding her hand to give her some strength back) after burying Sophie, and when they came back, Willow smiled.

"She's taken your point," she said, "she's got that look on her face"

Buffy sighed, "why is it always me who has to do the changing-perspective-speeching, why can't anyone do that themselves?"

"I guess you're fighting the forces of Darkness,'"smiled Willow, "even in super-hybrid hero types"

"Nnrr," groaned Buffy, "I hate being the Slayer"

"We're going to make a base in Germany, England and Italy," said Selene, "we're going to find Daniel, see how he's doing"

"Keep up the optimism," said Buffy, looking at Michael, "we'll call you if we need you"

'Keep safe' said Selene, and they left.

Giles walked in a few minutes later.

'Am I to understand that you managed to change the psychological profile of two demi-gods?'

Buffy rolled her eyes "It seems to be a growing part of my job – Giles, is there somewhere filled with demons? Lots of bust-em-dust-ems?"

"Umm, yes, plenty, Buffy, the supple is supposed to be fairly inexhaustable, why?"

Buffy held up her silver stake "I don't feel I've got to know this one well enough yet, and God I need it!"

Kennedy sat down on Willow's lap and whispered "If Selene stays any longer next time, we might have to put a calming spell on her"

"I did," said Willow, "the whole time"


End file.
